


turn a bright spark into a flame

by anamnesisUnending



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gays Criminals In Space!, Mutual Pining, Other, Post-Season/Series 02, Reunion Fic, Slow Burn, The Family That Steals Together Heals Together, aaaaaaaaaand get ready for a, more tags to be added as I actually write this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 07:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamnesisUnending/pseuds/anamnesisUnending
Summary: Juno Steel has spent the last year learning to come to terms with his past. Peter Nureyev has spent a lifetime running from his. When they're finally reunited, they'll have to learn to confront not only the past they share, but the future they never made together.Also, a supportive gay space crime family and an interstellar corporate conspiracy.





	turn a bright spark into a flame

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Jupeter anthem Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham! because I had to
> 
> Big thanks to [Bri](/users/MoonlitMusings/) for helping me edit this chapter!<3

Juno isn’t sure if he’s still shaky from exiting the atmosphere, or if it’s just from seeing Nureyev again. Of course his fear of heights would make space travel hell; when they’d taken off he’d held Rita’s hand so tightly he was worried he’d broken her bones once they’d reached escape velocity, and as if that hadn’t been bad enough…

_Hello, Juno. It’s been a while._

He’s never going to get that image of Nureyev out of his head, posing like a goddamn marble statue on the hood of that car, too perfect to be real. He wouldn’t even mind, really, except all it does is remind him every second of just how badly he screwed up.

He’s imagined how his reunion with Nureyev might go a thousand times. Even in his sleep, he can’t stop his brain from cycling through scenarios—on his knees, begging for his forgiveness, or defensive and self-righteous, or crying, kissing, falling back into his arms as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

Instead, he’d barely managed a hello before Jet was ushering him to his room, Buddy giving some greeting and instruction that Juno barely heard, Nureyev sliding off the car and vanishing in some unknown direction.

He’d found him, later, in the hallway just outside of Juno’s room. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this:

_Juno looks Nureyev in the eyes, just for a second, just long enough to see that there is nothing there that speaks to any lingering care for him. He casts his gaze to the floor. Nureyev doesn’t pass him, though. He reaches out, grasps him by the wrist and stops him. His motions are almost mechanical. He doesn’t wear the same cologne._

_“Did you tell anyone?” he asks, sounding cold and almost accusatory. He holds himself with a confidence Juno doesn’t quite believe, and, dropping his hand, a distance that Juno surely deserves._

_Juno feels his brow furrow. “Tell anyone what?”_

_“Oh don’t be coy with me, Detective. My name.” He pauses, but not long enough to let Juno speak. “I know you didn’t want it in the first place; you made that abundantly clear, and I’m sorry for burdening you with it. All I ask now is that you tell no one else, and if you already have, then…”_

_“I haven’t,” Juno says sharply, struck by an unexpected feeling of betrayal. Nureyev doesn’t care that he left him. He didn’t come here for an apology, or an explanation. Only to reclaim his secrets._

_“No one?” Nureyev presses. “Not even your secretary, or—”_

_“Or who?” Juno snaps. “Not like I’ve got people lining up at my door to hear your secrets. No, I didn’t tell Rita. I didn’t ring up the Hyperion Chronicle, I didn’t spill to my therapist. And before you ask, that was a joke and I don’t have one, so you don’t have to worry about me telling them anything else about you either. Good?”_

_Nureyev sighs and straightens his shoulders with a stiff and deliberate reserve. “Yes. Thank you, Detective.”_

_And then he turns to leave. Juno feels his heart drop into his stomach, cries “Wait,” without a thought in his mind of what to say next. He watches Nureyev turn back and tilt his head with nothing but cold curiosity, and he stammers out, “So what am I supposed to call you now?”_

_Nureyev is silent for a long moment, and Juno can see on his face a strange sorrow, the weight of that question. But when he speaks again, it’s dismissively, “Whatever you like.”_

_“Well, what’s everyone else calling you?”_

_“Razia Baron? Dido Padishah? Hyacinth Archon? Take your pick,” he says. “Vespa still calls me Indigo Viceroy, though that’s a name I haven’t used in years, and Buddy’s taken to calling me ‘Your Majesty,’ I suppose simply because she enjoys mocking me. But as far as they’re concerned, I don’t have a name, and that’s… ideal. I’d like to keep it that way.”_

_Juno closes his eye, and imagines each of those names in his mouth. They all feel foreign, out of place, like strangers plastered over the man who once let Juno know him as no one else in the galaxy did. It hurts, to imagine calling him any one of those false names. So Juno reaches for the only olive branch he can think of, a desperate plea to be close to him again, and he says, “What about Rose? Duke Rose.”_

_“Very well.” Nureyev’s eyes flicker with some emotion Juno can’t pin down, but it vanishes, and they’re left standing still in the silent hallway, locking eyes over the wide, empty space between them. Nureyev’s face is an impassive mask, and Juno grits his teeth on the desire to close the gap and just reach out and touch him, but he doesn’t deserve that._

_He reaches for the door to his room and says, “I should go. Unpacking, and stuff.”_

_“Yes, I suppose I should be leaving as well,” Nureyev says, but Juno has already turned away. Just before the sharp clicking footsteps of him returning to his own quarters, Juno thinks he hears in a soft whisper, “...Dahlia.”_

*

Juno is pulled from his thoughts by a knock on the door.

“What,” he answers coldly.

“May I come in?” Jet asks from outside.

Juno gets off his bed and opens the door. “What do you want?”

Jet lingers in the doorway, even as Juno returns once again to his bed. He can’t help feeling a little self-conscious as Jet examines the empty walls, the small collection of clothes already sitting in piles on the floor, the general barrenness of the tin can that is to be Juno’s home for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t that he hadn’t brought anything of sentiment along with him. It’s just that he prefers to keep his memories, and any objects attached to them, in a locked box, for no one else to see. Usually, not even for himself to see.

He pushes the literal locked box out of sight behind him. It’s open, for once, a picture of Ben at some dance competition sitting at the top of its contents. He’s trying to get better, about letting himself remember. He’s not ready for anyone else to see, yet.

Jet says, “Buddy has called a meeting in half an hour. She asked that I make sure you know to be on time.”

“Sure,” Juno says. “That all?”

“No,” Jet says, still standing in the doorway, and it takes Juno a second to realize that he’s waiting for an _invitation_ like a goddamn vampire.

“Fine,” Juno says. “Come in.”

Jet crosses to the bed and sits down beside him. “I am concerned about whether your past work with Dido will affect our work here,” he says. “I would rather not be.”

“Dido?”

“Our nameless thief. Your former partner. It is the name he gave me most recently.”

“Huh.” Juno wonders, briefly, what this particular shade of Nureyev is like. Then he retorts, “Seems like the best solution for that is keeping your nose out of other people’s business.”

“I disagree.”

“Good for you.”

Jet looks at Juno, stern, the kind of look that bosses and principals and all sorts of authority figures Juno’s hated in his life have had, although with Jet that might just be his face—and he says, “I ask because you seemed perturbed to see him again. I said I am concerned for how this may affect our work. This is not my only concern. I say this—I hope—as a friend to both of you; I do not want you to hurt each other.”

Juno feels a deep pit in his stomach, and he responds, without thinking, “A little too goddamn late for that.”

Jet looks at him strangely.

“What, your _friend_ didn’t tell you what happened between us?”

“There is no part of Dido’s past that is without secrets,” he says. “And, in my experience, he has never been quick to share such things. I did not wish to pry.”

Never quick to share his secrets, except with Juno. He lets his head drop into his hands. He says, roughly, “Maybe stick to not prying. Look, I… I walked away when I shouldn’t have. Didn’t think I’d ever see him again, and now that I have… I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with this. I just need some time, okay?”

“Very well,” Jet says. His hand, heavy and scarred, alights gently onto Juno’s, only for a moment. “If you need me, I will be here.”

“Sure,” Juno says.

Jet gets up to leave and, turning back, he reminds Juno, “Don’t be late. Vespa is not a patient woman.”

*

In spite of Jet’s warning, Juno is still the last one to arrive at the meeting.

“You’re late, Steel,” Vespa says, standing by Buddy at the head of the table and punctuating her words with a sharp glare and a sharper jab towards him with the knife in her hand.

Juno just makes his way to the table and doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response. Rita, on the other hand, makes a terrified squeak on his behalf. Vespa seems bewildered for a moment, until Buddy sets a hand over the one Vespa wields her knife with and gives her a gently chiding look.

“Sorry,” Vespa says quickly, setting aside her weapon. Juno’s not sure if the apology is directed at him, Buddy, or Rita. “Try to be on time, next time,” she says, making the same accusatory gesture at him, though this time unarmed and with a great deal less enthusiasm to it.

“Sure,” Juno says, waving off the whole exchange and sitting down in the empty chair next to Rita. He realizes a moment too late that this puts him directly across from Nureyev, and practically flinches to divert his eye away from him. Graciously, no one comments on this.

“Well,” Buddy says. “Now that everyone’s here, I think it’s about time we get started. First order of business, welcome aboard to the two newest members of our crew. Juno. You certainly took your time with that call.”

Juno starts to protest, but Buddy cuts him off quickly.

“Oh hush, darling. I know you’ve been busy dealing with Hyperion. I expect there’s quite a story there, but it will have to wait for later. Regardless, I’m certainly glad you’ve finally decided to work with us. I promise I’ll make it worth your while. And Rita. I’ve been an admirer of your work for a very long time. It’s an honor to meet you, and more so to be working with you.”

Buddy flashes that supernova smile of hers that could almost make Juno weak in the knees. He breathes a sigh heavy as lead and leans his head down into his hands as Rita giggles and starts making that wheezy, starstruck gasping sound that always makes him wonder if she needs an inhaler, or maybe just an emergency oxygen supply.

When he looks up, the first thing he sees is Nureyev, watching him with what he could almost convince himself was a fond, knowing look, if he didn’t know better. It vanishes in an instant, and Juno looks away as quickly as Nureyev does.

Everyone else is watching Rita. Jet and Vespa are apparently contemplating medical intervention, and even Buddy is a little taken aback by the effect she’s had on her, but Juno rolls his eye and says, “She’s fine. Can we maybe get to what the hell we’re actually doing here?”

Buddy clears her throat. “Are you sure she’s—”

“I’m _wonderful_ , how are _you?_ ” Rita asks, dragging out the words in a way she seems to think is flirtatious.

“Magnificent,” Buddy says, seeming to relax for just a moment. “I’m afraid we have a lot more to cover, though. Juno and Rita, I’ve obtained all of your medical records. Vespa will be going over those with you after breakfast tomorrow, which is at 9am sharp. I’ll also want your input on meal planning, and a list of any essentials you’ll need replenished in supply runs. Chore roster is posted over the sink in the kitchen, and I’ll have you marked down for this week by tomorrow morning. Any questions?”

Rita’s hand immediately shoots up into the air, and before Buddy can ask, Juno responds, “I’ll make sure we get your horrible salmon snacks on supply runs.”

“Aww, Mistah Steel!” Rita tackles him with a hug that knocks him out of his chair, and then she says, “Question Number Two is: when are mandatory team movie nights?”

“Please say never,” Juno says as he extricates himself from Rita’s clutches and slumps back into his chair.

“We’ll discuss that later,” Buddy says diplomatically. “Juno? Any questions?”

“Yeah. Can we get to the damn job already?” he says.

Buddy shares a look with Vespa, and the room grows grim and quiet.

Vespa nods. “Alright,” she says, perching on the arm of Buddy’s chair. Her knife is back in her hand, and she fiddles with it as she speaks, brusquely. “The job: our target is the Cerberus Board of Fresh Starts. Shouldn’t have to explain why to any of you. For a few months now, we’ve been working on a plan to take down their operation without screwing over all the poor bastards like me in the Cerberus Province. Unfortunately, they’ve got a price on my head, and we’re assuming the same for Buddy, Jet, and Juno—” She shoots him a quick, nervous glance, and interrupts herself, “—sorry, J.”

Then she keeps going. “We’re trying to lay low, gather intel, figure out where to strike, but it’s been slow going. Until a week ago.

“Operating out of the Cerberus Province means the Board of Fresh Starts doesn’t have legal standing in the eyes of any planetary government, but Indigo’s managed to dig up financial links to a number of existing corporations in the Outer Rim. Most of this we already knew about—pharmaceuticals and scam space travel companies and the like—but there was something else too. The Board of Fresh Starts owns a company called Sky and Shield Manufacturing. A dome manufacturer. And recently they’ve been shoveling some serious amounts of money towards it.”

Juno furrows his brow, searching for some kind of connection and finding none.

“We don’t know what they’re planning yet,” Vespa admits, meeting Juno’s scrutinizing gaze, and clearly that frustrates her more than anything else about this. “But we’ve been working on some theories. Indigo, you wanna take over with the history lesson?”

“Of course,” Nureyev says. “Obviously, Mars is not the only planet that uses dome technology. Many of the Outer Rim planets’ initial terraforming attempts weren’t entirely successful, leaving them vulnerable to stellar radiation without the protection of a dome. This didn’t pose a significant issue, until the war caused nearly irreparable damage to the infrastructure of most Outer Rim planets and left many domes leaking small amounts of radiation into the cities they protect.

“Now, we don’t have substantial evidence to support this, but I believe the Board of Fresh Starts is pouring money into Sky and Shield in order to replace domes damaged in the war with their own deliberately defective ones. Under the new domes, it won’t take long for most people’s already-present radiation poisoning symptoms to intensify, and by then it will be far too late to overhaul the project and replace the domes. So the inhabitants of these planets will only have two options: sell themselves to the Board of Fresh Starts for a cure, or—”

“Or buy a ticket to the Solar planets from one of the Board of Fresh Starts’ scammers, where they’ll end up in the Cerberus Province with the exact same problem they were running away from,” Juno finishes, his brain following that train of thought straight off its tracks, and when the rest of him catches up a moment later he realizes his fingernails are digging into his palms, his jaw wound so tight his teeth might crack, and he’s staring through Nureyev’s eyes with a desperate, hopeless fury. Nureyev stares right back.

Juno can’t stop the thought before it comes, the memory of a night—so long ago, now—when he was staring with that same desperation down into a glass of whiskey, the same man sitting across from him,

_You know, you’re very handsome when you’re like this… Morally outraged._

He pulls his eyes away from Nureyev like he’d pull a hand back from a hot stove.

“Precisely,” Buddy says to his point.

“But that’s _awful!_ ” Rita cries. “How could anyone do something like that?”

“Because they’re heartless capitalists, Rita,” Juno says, coming back to himself, at the same that Vespa responds, “Capitalism.”

Vespa has that same anger carved into her face that Juno feels, and when she looks at Juno, she seems to soften for not being the only one to carry it. “Bingo,” she says, pointing the blade of her knife at him again, this time in what he takes to be a friendly gesture.

“So what’s our plan?” Juno asks.

“Besides hunt down every single person responsible for this and slit their throats?” Vespa suggests, but the words come out discouraged and sardonic, her voice rough with misery more than anger.

Juno stills, the seemingly endless list of names playing back in his head, of every person who signed off on the Theia Soul. “That’s… a lot of people,” he says, and when a shiver runs down his spine, he has to grit his teeth and remind himself it’s not the same as the hum of electricity in the back of his mind every time the Theia spoke.

For the first time, Jet speaks up. “Juno has expressed his distaste for murder on numerous occasions. Given that this is one of his primary conditions in working with us, I feel that we should avoid this course of action as much as possible.”

Vespa sighs. “I know, Jet. Wasn’t seriously suggesting it. It’d be a stupid idea anyway.”

Jet nods and sits back in his chair.

Finally, Buddy says, “To answer your question, Juno, we don’t have a plan yet. I assure you, this is as frustrating to me as it is to you, but we can’t go rushing into this on half-baked theories and reckless improvisation. There’s a great deal more at stake this time than the last.”

Buddy takes Vespa’s hand in her own as she says that, and Juno catches what was left unspoken; _This time we have something to lose._

“We’ll keep working on gathering information. I’m sure you and Rita will prove invaluable additions to our team, and I’ll need that sharp, analytical mind of yours if we’re going to unravel this conspiracy. But not tonight. For now, meeting adjourned.”

She stands up, Vespa’s hand still locked with hers, and the two of them vanish into the dark halls of the ship. Jet and Nureyev disperse soon after, leaving Rita and her wide eyes, and Juno still braced against the table, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into this time.

“That sure was a lot to take in, huh Mistah Steel,” Rita says.

Juno grunts in response.

“You know, sometimes when you hear a whole bunch of really important stuff like that and it feels like the whole galaxy’s sitting right on your shoulders, the best thing to do is just forget about it for a little bit and watch a movie, don’t ya think?”

Juno sags back into his chair and feels some of the tension drain from his body. “Yeah, I… I think that sounds nice, Rita,” he says.

*

Peter’s room on the ship could easily be that of a king, or the finest room in the finest hotel in the galaxy. Buddy had told him to make himself at home, after all, and for the past several years he’d made a career out of stealing himself a home in the lap of luxury. Home, to him, is gilded wallpaper, mahogany furniture grown organically and handcrafted on Earth, stolen paintings on every wall, 10,000 thread count silk sheets. Home is every decadent fantasy he could ever dream of indulging, most of all the fantasy of permanence. But permanence, like money and prestige, was something to be imitated, never truly his. Home is a thing to relish, when he has it, and a thing to be abandoned without a second thought when he inevitably needs to flee.

He admits, the king size canopy bed he brought may have been a bit much—the exasperation on Buddy’s face had made her thoughts on the matter quite clear, when he’d had to saw the bed frame in half to get it into the room—but it’s not as though he sleeps in it anyway. He studiously makes the bed every morning, so no one who sees it might know that every night he strips the sheets and blankets from it and piles them into a corner, underneath the shelter of his desk. He couldn’t stand how exposed he felt on a bed, out in the middle of the room. And the floor had always been more comfortable to him anyway.

Tonight, when he returns to his room, he tears the covers from his bed with more force than strictly necessary, and draws the curtains around it shut. He doesn’t need to look at the bare mattress. He doesn’t need to remember that the last time he slept in a real bed, he had fallen asleep in Juno Steel’s arms, and woken up alone.

He pulls off his clothes and removes his makeup, preparing for sleep. As the foundation runs and washes away, the scars reveal themselves—pale, silvery circles against light brown skin, where overheated electrodes had burned into him, and other marks, from other tortures at Miasma’s hands. He dabs scar cream onto each blemish, the jar nearly empty and the marks only barely faded from what they once were.

Peter Nureyev’s is a body with too many memories burned into it, and he cannot deny any of them as he stands before his mirror.

These are the hands that drove a knife into the heart of his father. These are the nails that he could not get the dried blood out from under for days and days after. These are the hands that Juno Steel held as he saw some unknown piece of this past. These are the hands that turned cards for hours and hours, and when they stopped this is the body that convulsed with the jagged arcs of electricity that coursed through it. This is the scar that was still a raw burn when Juno kissed it so sweetly, that night in a Hyperion City hotel room. This is the body that shivered with cold when he woke in that same hotel room, alone.

These are the eyes that Juno’s met just hours ago. Juno, who looked back at him with a vivid horror like nothing he’d ever seen before.

And this is a name that he wishes was not his: Peter Nureyev. He wishes, so ardently, to become someone else. It has never been a matter of wishing before. But the scars that mark his body are a permanent reminder of who he is, and now Juno is here as well. For better or for worse, Juno has always seen him for exactly what he is.

Juno is alive. He’s safe, and miraculously, he even looks like he’s taking care of himself. It’s more than Peter ever dared to dream of for him, after everything. He cannot imagine Juno has room for Peter in the better life he’s building for himself.

Peter folds himself into the space beneath his desk, wrapped in blankets, and stares up at the low mahogany ceiling above him.

*

_Duke takes Dahlia’s name. It’s an honor to be granted the title of “Rose,” to become a part of legendary criminal dynasty, the scourge of the Outer Rim, and not one that’s ever achieved through means so trivial as bloodlines; the Roses earn their family name through their deeds, and more than a name they earn the protection and sense of belonging that comes so naturally to the Roses. There are none more dangerous, and none who love more fiercely._

_Dahlia steals the crown jewels of Ymir, and finds himself adopted by the myriad members of the Rose family—mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and siblings and cousins and all._

_Duke is lucky enough to marry in._

_It’s something out of a fairytale, really. Some poor, hapless pickpocket with no family and nothing to his name, and more dreams than he’ll ever have creds, stealing the heart of Dahlia Rose. Being stolen in return._

_In their story, the Utgard Express job goes off without a hitch. They loot the train to their hearts’ content, and when they escape—because of course they do—they set off for the stars with unfathomable riches and boundless dreams. Life never loses its thrill, and every day, every planet is like another honeymoon._

It’s certainly not the best story Peter Nureyev has ever crafted, but it’s the one he always comes back to: on sleepless nights, when he’s out in the cold empty galaxy, whenever he’s alone. It’s a distant spot of light, a star too far to ever sail to, but always hanging constant in the sky. He can almost imagine that so long as Duke Rose is somewhere in the galaxy with his beloved, Peter Nureyev doesn’t have to exist, heartbroken and alone. But to be here with Juno, to be called that name and constantly confronted with the falsehood it represents, is just one more shield torn away.

He bites back the stinging pain behind his eyes and makes himself another shield.

_Dido Padishah had inherited a kingdom unparalleled by all the wonders of the galaxy, and with it the avaricious rivals from every star system. Dido protects his kingdom. He will not sacrifice it to their greed, and he takes no husband._

_But Dido falls in love nonetheless. A hero sings him sweet promises: “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” “If you’re a fool, that makes two of us.” “I want to stay. With you.” And Dido knows the taste of lies on his tongue, but all these words taste as honeyed truths, and so he is a fool, and he believes them._

_Here is the first rule of governing a kingdom: never fall in love with a hero._

_Dido’s lover leaves. It doesn’t matter whether or not he wants to. He is called by some greater duty, destined never to devote himself to Dido and his kingdom. He leaves, and in doing so, he throws Dido to the ravenous wolves ever snapping at his heels. His kingdom is stolen, piece by ruined piece._

_When the Dido of legend was forsaken by her Aeneas, she threw herself upon her sword, and burned on a funeral pyre. Dido Padishah burns more quietly, with hatred. He doesn’t burn to destroy himself._

*

It is easy to hate Dido’s lover. It is easy to hate someone who does not exist, comforting, even, to give some meaningless direction to his anger.

He cannot hate Juno. He only wishes he understood. Or rather, he understands that Juno could not devote himself to someone who had done such things as Peter Nureyev had, couldn’t run away with him, couldn’t love him, and he only wishes he could understand some other reason for Juno’s choice, in this one’s stead.

He only wishes he understood why Juno will barely even look at him.


End file.
